


In The Greenhouse

by Skylark



Series: Petra, daughter of Brigid [3]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bullying, Discrimination, F/M, First Meetings, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Greenhouses, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Racism, The Great Fódlan Bakeoff (Fire Emblem), Xenophobia, there are a lot of headcanons in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26459962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: "The outside is having much coldness," she said instead of telling Dedue her troubles. "I am not wanting to leave this warm place yet."
Relationships: Petra Macneary & Dedue Molinaro, Petra Macneary/Dedue Molinaro
Series: Petra, daughter of Brigid [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876327
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	In The Greenhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Great Fodlan Bakeoff](https://twitter.com/TGFodlanBakeoff). The prompts I used were flowers, courage, sunset, and trust. (I forgot about reunion, oops.) I'm super mad that Petra and Dedue don't have a support line??
> 
> Please read the tags. Thank you to [Icie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icie) for the quick beta. Follow me @petrarights on twitter to see me screaming about Petra and Dedue in real time.

A full-body shiver wracked Petra's body as she climbed the steps to the monastery. Her hands were cold, and her knuckles ached as she clutched her bags of shopping. More bags were draped on her elbows, digging into the thick cloak she wore as she marched upward, careful of her footing on the slippery steps. She'd first learned of the treachery of black ice the hard way, and it was not a lesson she would forget easily.

She reached the imposing door of the entrance hall and hesitated, considering her options. Certainly she would be slightly warmer on the way back to the dorms if she went through the entrance hall and covered walkways, but it would be a longer route also, and the sun was setting. She'd get back faster if she cut past the fishing pond; there were more stairs that way, but the exertion might keep her warmer, and the promise of reaching her warm, cozy room faster was more valuable than a temporary reprieve through the entrance hall. She'd never been one for easy satisfaction.

The fishing pond route, she decided, and set off.

There was a thin layer of ice on the pond, blue-white and smooth except for a tiny ragged circle near the dock where a student was balefully trying their luck at ice fishing. Petra shook her head, marveling at their tenacity before continuing on. She was shivering harder now, the cold air like tiny knives inside her lungs. She wished that the professor had ended classes a little sooner so that she could have started her house's shopping earlier as well. She did not mind the errand that her classmates had set for her, exactly, but she did not like having to complete it under such adverse conditions. She thought of her room, the walls and floor lined with furs to keep the warmth in, and gritted her teeth.

She continued on, glancing at the cats and dogs that lolled around the edge of the pond hoping for handouts. Distracted, her numb hands lost their grip on her bags and she lunged forward, trying to catch them. The sudden movement made her lose her footing on the cobblestones and she fell hard, the breath driven from her as she landed on her side. The fishing student glanced up at the sound of her fall, saw her dark skin and the color of her hair, and looked away again.

Well. It was nothing Petra was not used to.

She groaned, sitting up slowly as she rubbed her sore hip. Her bags were scattered around her and she gathered them to herself, biting her lip. She wished to assess the damage, but she loathed the idea of staying outside in this cold a second longer than she had to. However, continuing on without reorganizing her purchases might make any damage worse from jostling.

She looked up, considering her options, and her eye settled on the low golden light pouring through the greenhouse as the sun set behind it. She thought of the warmth waiting inside and she couldn't help but long for it.

Fine, she decided. A brief rest to gather herself, and then she would continue on.

When the first blast of hot, humid air billowed across her skin, Petra breathed in a deep sigh of relief. She hurried inside and closed the doors behind her to keep the heat in, her bags bumping against her sore hip as she moved. She winced. That would surely bruise unless she tended to it properly, and she could not afford to have anything hindering her weapons training. Thankfully she had ingredients for a poultice back in her room.

The air was heavy with the scent of foreign flowers as she moved further inside the building. She didn't have reason to enter the greenhouse, normally. The building was full of straight paths crowded on all sides with foliage, but it took a long time before she was able to find a bench to sit on. She rested with a sigh, setting her bags down carefully before she started to sort through them.

There was one small jar of preserves that was a little cracked, but aside from that everything seemed to be in order. She smiled, relieved, and started to rearrange everything when a small noise made her look up.

There was a student kneeling between the rows of greenery, his hands full of trimmed-off leaves. He was looking at her with surprise, and she looked back with a similar expression.

"Oh, you are..." she thought. "Dedue, yes?"

He nodded. "And you are Petra, the princess of Brigid. There are not usually any other visitors to the greenhouse at this time of day."

She nodded back, the weight of her title a little odd when she was feeling sore and cold and very, very ordinary. Still, it wasn't like it was a weight she ever set down.

"I needed to be resting shortly...for a short time, after making many purchases in the city," she said. "Do you spend much time here?"

"I do."

"I do not," she admitted.

"I had noticed," he said wryly. She laughed.

"I am not liking the cold," she said, "so everyone expects to be finding me in the greenhouse. I am asked about it often. But I am preferring the sauna, which is good for health. Here, there is..." she hesitated, thinking of how to phrase it. "The plants of Brigid do not like to grow far from home," she said. "There are only plants of strangeness here."

Dedue's gaze was piercing. She straightened up beneath it, finding its honesty refreshing. "I can understand your sentiments," he said. "I admit that part of me feels much the same."

"Can Duscur plants grow here?" she asked, nodding to the greenhouse around them.

"Some," he said, gesturing to a small corner. "However, they do not grow the same in captivity."

"Then why do you..." her glaze flicked toward the broad leafy plants that arched overhead, almost like the banana plants of her homeland but just different enough to cause a feeling of uncanny dissonance. "Are you not also feeling strangeness?"

Without her having to explain further, Dedue nodded, understanding lighting his face. Petra wasn't used to being understood so easily, and she felt some long-held tension ease. Dedue put a hand to his chin, thoughtful, as Petra leaned her weight back on the heels of her hands.

"I like to cook. I find pleasure in growing the vegetables myself."

"Fódlan vegetables?" she asked.

"Some of the vegetables of Faerghus are not so different from those found in Duscur."

Petra nodded, realizing. "Ah. Yes, the two countries are close, after all."

Dedue looked up sharply at her word choice. Petra took in a breath, wondering if she should clarify that she meant geographically and not... but Dedue didn't look upset as he turned to dump the trimmings in his hands into a bucket nearly overflowing with similar discarded greenery. He dusted off his hands before moving a few steps down the row, kneeling down by a tall plant held up with a delicate-looking cage.

Silence descended as he tended to it, pinching off a few yellow leaves with his fingers. Petra crossed her ankles as she watched him. She thought she recognized the plant. When she saw him discover a red fruit hanging around the back of the plant and smile, the expression transforming his face, she felt certain.

"Tomato?" she tried, her courage bolstered by his expression.

"Yes," Dedue said, looking up and blinking as if he had forgotten she was there. She smiled at him, and while he didn't return it, the tense line of his shoulders relaxed slightly.

There was a pause before he asked, "Are there any dishes served in the dining hall that you particularly enjoy?"

Petra brightened. "I am liking the food of Fódlan," she said. "Of them, my favorite...I think it is the stew that is having the fish and turnips."

"Spicy fish and turnip stew," Dedue confirmed. "I like that dish also. Would you like to see what a turnip plant looks like before it is harvested?"

Petra leaned forward. "Yes, please! I would be liking that greatly," she said. Dedue turned and walked deeper into the greenhouse, beckoning her onward with a small gesture. She picked up her bags and followed. It was brighter as they came closer to the windows, the last bits of sunlight limning Dedue's face in crimson and gold. 

"Here, and here," he said, pointing out the turnip plants. Their large, leafy tops were somewhat unremarkable but she recognized the vegetable poking out of the soil from the dish, chopped up and boiled. She licked her lips as she remembered their bright, sharp taste.

"It is wonderful to think that these greens will become such deliciousness," she said, and he smiled at the avarice in her voice.

"Yes."

"There are many things to like here, even though it is far from the land of home," she observed. "There are still friends, and still good food to cook and share..."

Dedue nodded. "What about yourself?" he said, looking at the packages weighing down her arms. "Do you have friends who are waiting for you?"

Petra's smile faded. She was close to some of the students in her house—Bernadetta, Ferdinand, even Edelgard to some degree—but most of the other students, commoners and those from smaller noble houses, did not show Petra similar consideration. Her fellow students had forced Petra to take up shopping in the first place, jeering at her as they had pushed her out the door.

"Good luck," they'd said, laughing, "you'll need it, with how you can't even string two sentences together."

"Can she even read the shopping list you gave her?"

"Do you think she'll end up losing all of the professor's money? Hey, don't take too long, all right? Some of us have stuff to do."

"I know the monastery helps everyone, but even _her?_ What is the Officer's Academy coming to?"

The first time she had returned with the shopping they had mocked her purchases, telling her she'd bought the wrong type of this, the wrong amount of that, but _of course_ she couldn't do any better, she was just a foreigner, after all. 

She could have told the professor what was happening, or turned to those she did call her friends. Edelgard, especially, would have put a stop to it. But she knew that those who asked for outside help often faced worse consequences later on and, besides, somehow or another she had to find a way to turn even these silly, cruel children into allies if she was to free her people for good. So Petra had ducked her head and persevered until Ashe had found her in town and helped her with bartering and shopping. She had some fondness for Dedue's house as a result of that.

Over time she came to approach the task of shopping with a light heart, certain of her shopping skills and enjoying the opportunity to go into town and speak with all kinds of people. She liked it now, even if the task had sprung from bad roots.

"The outside is having much coldness," she said instead of telling Dedue her troubles. "I am not wanting to leave this warm place yet."

Dedue's expression shifted. He looked over her clothing with a critical eye. "You don't have a scarf," he said, "or gloves."

"I was forgetting," she said, ducking her head. "We do not have the custom in Brigid of wearing gloves when we use our weapons. The feeling of wearing them...it is a strangeness. I do not like it."

Dedue nodded. "But a scarf?"

An embarrassed smile tugged at her mouth. "That was thoughtlessness," she said.

After a pause, he reached into the deep pocket of his winter coat and pulled out a neatly folded scarf. "Here," he said, offering it to her.

She searched his face, shocked. "This is...a great kindness," she murmured. "Will you not be cold, also?"

"This weather does not bother me overmuch, and I do not want you to catch a cold. Return it whenever you can find the time. I can spare it."

"You are entrusting this to me?" Petra said, reaching for the scarf.

Dedue looked at her. "Should I not?"

Startled, she vigorously shook her head. "No," she said. "I will be giving it the most safekeeping." She took it and bowed to him, a hand over her heart in the Fódlan fashion. "I thank you for your kindness."

He nodded. Petra was starting to realize that he wasn't as expressionless as he seemed at first glance. A small flicker of satisfaction crossed his face when she tucked the scarf away for later, treating it with care.

He returned to gardening, and the silence that fell was comfortable. She settled on another bench and sorted through her bags, re-organizing them the way she wanted so that they would not jostle too much the rest of the way back to the dorms. Once done with that, she watched him garden until it was too dark to see Dedue's trowel pushing into the dirt, listening as he explained the differences between turnips and radishes, the sensitivity of peppers to the acidity of the soil. In return she tried to describe what the food of Brigid tasted like—fish paste and banana sauce, a melting pot of flavors borne from 200 years of colonization and her people's own ingenuity. It was hard to explain what a mango tasted like to someone who had never tried one, but she gave it her best effort.

When the only light left was the small lamp he kept close by his hand, he started to pack up. She retrieved her bags from where they were resting on the ground.

"May I return here?" she asked as they walked together to the greenhouse entrance.

Dedue didn't look up, but his voice was reluctant. "You should...take care not to be seen with me. I would only tarnish your reputation."

Petra looked at him. "You are speaking of the reputation of Duscur among the people of Fódlan," she said.

Dedue blinked. "Yes. So you are aware, then, of the Tragedy of Duscur, and how—"

"Is Duscur not the name of an entire nation?" she said.

Dedue hesitated. "...Yes."

"Yet the tragedy that is named, it did not happen in the entire nation, yes? It was only being a single place. A city or road. But history is not remembering the name of it. To the history writers, all of Duscur is like one place. Sharing a single face."

Dedue was watching her now. His gaze was sharper, but had lost some of its wariness.

"I know what it is like," she said, "to come from a strange people."

There was a moment of perfect silence. Then Dedue cleared his throat and bowed his head. "As I stated before, the greenhouse is open to all students," he said, his voice gentled. "You may come and go as you like."

"And yourself?" she asked as Dedue held the door open and she passed through it. The cold air slapped her in the face and she shivered, glad for the scarf newly wound around her throat. "May I come and go to be seeing you as I would like, as well?"

Dedue huffed a breath out through his mouth, a small disbelieving sound. Petra watched it cloud in the air before dissipating. "You are forthright," he said. "But I would not refuse your company, should you find yourself wanting mine."

**Author's Note:**

> [retweet link](https://twitter.com/petrarights/status/1305448250011418626?s=20)


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